Effective copywriting in Google Ads

7min.

Comments:0

Ads
Effective copywriting in Google Adsd-tags
18 February 2020
If you want to reach and attract potential customers, you need to provide them with valuable, attractive and engaging advertising texts that meet Google’s editorial requirements. Keep reading our article if you’re wondering how to write a compelling ad or how to improve CTR and quality score of your Google Ads.
Ads

7min.

Comments:0

Text ads in Google Ads

Google Ads offers a variety of campaign types where ad copy is required. Contrary to what one might think, this doesn’t apply solely to the Search Network. Ad copy can also be added in Display campaigns or Performance Max, which are also displayed across the Google Display Network.

Ads within each campaign type differ significantly from one another. Therefore, it’s not surprising that there are also differences when it comes to ad copy requirements. Depending on the ad type, the character count is specifically limited. There are also different types of ad copy available, including headlines, long headlines, descriptions, call-to-action (CTA), or URL paths.

The tables below outline the specific types of ad copy and character limits available in:

  • Responsive Search Ads (RSA)
  • Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)
  • Responsive Display Ads
  • Video Ads
  • Performance Max
  • Demand Gen

Responsive Search Ads (RSA)

Field Maximum Length
Headlines (minimum 3, maximum 15)

30 characters each

Descriptions (minimum 2, maximum 4)

 90 characters each

Path (2 elements separated by “/”)

15 characters each

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

Field Maximum Length
Headlines

Automatically generated

2 Descriptions

90 characters each

Path (2)

Automatically generated

Responsive Display Ads

Field Maximum Length
Headlines (maximum 5)

30 characters each

Long Headline

90 characters

Descriptions (maximum 5)

90 characters each

Business Name

25 characters

Video Ads

Field Maximum Length
Headline

15 characters

Call-to-Action

10 characters

 

Performance Max

Field Maximum Length
Headlines (maximum 15)

30 characters each

Long Headlines (maximum 5)

90 characters each

Short Ad Text

60 characters

Descriptions (maximum 4)

90 characters each

Business Name 

25 characters

Demand Gen

Field Maximum Length
Headlines (maximum 5 for single image and video ads, one for carousel ads)

40 characters each

Long Headlines (maximum 5, only for In-Feed video ads)

90 characters each

Descriptions (maximum 5 for single image and video ads, one for carousel ads)

90 characters each

Business Name

25 characters

You can find detailed guidelines for each ad type in Demand Gen campaigns here.

Catchy Ad Copy

Many experts consider headlines to be the most relevant elements of Google Ads. Why? Well, most people don’t even read the text below the headline and decide whether to click the advertisement only on the basis of its heading. Therefore, already at this stage it’s very important to:

  • draw the attention of potential customers,
  • show off USP – a unique sales feature that distinguishes your product or service from others,
  • apply keywords,
  • sell value.

The principles described above apply also to the texts of advertisements with more characters which give you much more possibilities. The displayed URL should convince users that after clicking on the link they’ll be redirected to the exact website they’re looking for. In the subsequent parts of our article we’ll discuss how to maximally benefit from the available advertising space and what to focus on when creating specific elements of text ads.

Personalizing texts of your ads

Write for users, not for yourself. It’s a rule that needs to be followed if you want to be successful in reaching your potential customers.

However, before you start creating advertisements, you should answer a few very important questions concerning your recipients:

  • Who are your potential customers?
  • What language do they use to communicate?
  • What are they looking for online?
  • Is it a good idea to use specialized language?
  • What are their interests and needs?

You can retrieve this kind of information from your everyday communication with customers or from analytical tools such as Google Analytics. Thanks to this knowledge, you’ll be able to tailor the message and line of argument to specific recipients, interact with them or profile your offer as a dedicated product or an individual service. Consequently, potential customers will definitely comprehend your ads and perceive the offer as more valuable.

Unique Selling Points and selling value

Advertising texts should outline benefits of purchasing a product or service, affect the decision making process and encourage users to take action that is desired by your business. First and foremost, the content of your advertisements ought to answer the most basic question “why should I buy this product?”. Here, it’s very important to expose your Unique Selling Points, meaning all the features that make your products or services stand out from the competition on the market. These can be elements such as:

  • unique services or products,
  • free shipping,
  • same day delivery,
  • wide product range,
  • price,
  • free gifts,
  • extraordinary functionality or efficiency,
  • unique packaging,
  • the selected good or service available only for exclusive use,
  • recommendations

There are numerous methods to maintain your competitive edge and outline the uniqueness of your offer, that’s why it’s essential not only to take into consideration elements which affect the decision making process but also to focus on the most prominent assets of your offer.

AIDA – what is it and how to apply it in e-marketing?

AIDA is an initialism of four words that reflect four possible purchasing stages that your customers can currently be at. You’ll need different communication methods depending on the sales funnel stage your customers are at.

AIDA model

A – Attention – it’s about building brand, product or service recognition. The advertisement is supposed to engage customers. Here, you should use inspiring quotes and catchy slogans.

I – Interest – it’s about focusing on the customers’ interest in given products. The recipient is already familiar with the brand and its offer but hasn’t specified the exact models or services they’re looking for. At this stage, the advertisement is supposed to appeal to the customer through a wide range of products or unique features and help in choosing the right model.

D – Desire – at this stage you should do your best to convince users that they have to purchase a given product or service. The advertisement serves as a measure which aims at persuading customers that they really need your goods. Now you should present either reasonable or emotional factors that will make customers want to possess your products or services.

A – Action – this is the final step consisting in purchasing the product, making an inquiry or filling in the form. At this stage, your customers know their expectations and needs, therefore, they enter a specific model or service name in the search engine. They expect advertisements to meet their requirements and the websites to offer the specific goods they’re looking for.

Effective CTA in Google Ads

CTA – Call to Action – is supposed to encourage users to click on the advertisement and perform a specific action on your website. If you want your CTA to convert, or to put it simply to be clicked on, you need to make sure that it attracts visitors’ attention. As if often happens that looking at the advertisement and making a decision to click on it takes several seconds, it’s a good idea to place your CTA already in the headline. CTA buttons like “learn more”, “check out”, “read”, “make an appointment” or “sign up for” suggest users what they should do after seeing the ad and encourage them to take specific steps after being redirected to the website. The AIDA principle can be really helpful in selecting appropriate CTAs. A customer who is at the first stage of the sales funnel will need slogans such as “check out”, “earn more”, “find your dream home” or “find perfect gifts” to make sure that your offer is indeed so unique. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with persons who are familiar with your brand or offer, you can use CTAs like “buy now”, “order online” or “call today”.

Effective methods of attracting customers’ attention

In today’s world most companies and portals are doing their best to attract customers’ attention. It’s not easy to push yourself forward through so much information and ads of your competition, even once your advertisement has been displayed. Above we’ve discussed a few methods such as CTA, selling value and content tailored to the recipients that might be really helpful. However, this isn’t the end. What more can you do to ensure that your advertisements achieve satisfactory results? Below you can find a few valuable tips that are worth considering:

  • Appeal to emotions – people are emotional, therefore, an emotional message is more versatile and effective than the one referring to reason. Apart from being more efficient, it’s also understood by a larger part of users.
  • Experiment – even if you run a very small campaign, it’s worth applying different variants of text ads by, for example, using various CTAs, headlines and URLs.
  • Use captivating phrases – Inform about free gifts, special offers for selected customers, free delivery or longer guarantee.
  • Use keywords – Thanks to keywords, customers know that the advertised offer will provide them with everything they’re looking for. Consequently, they click on the ad much more willingly.
  • Ask intriguing questions – a properly asked question allows you to personalize the text and interact with the customer. Make sure that your CTA indicates that clicking on the advertisement will provide the recipient with the answer to the asked question. For example: Do you want to be in TOP 10 in Google? Contact us.
  • Be brief and specific – while creating your advertisements, you should be specific and focus only on relevant reasoning. Provide information about the most important assets of your products such as being approved, offering special guarantee or 24-hour delivery. Get rid of unnecessary words that don’t contribute to the content.
  • Make sure everything is up to date – emphasize the topicality of your offer and take advantage of seasonal trends, holidays and events that can promote your offer.

Assets (formerly: extensions) in Google Ads

Assets (formerly known as extensions) in Google Ads allow you to include additional information in your ads to encourage users to choose your business. Moreover, ads with assets take up more space on the search engine results page, which increases your ad’s visibility. Assets typically increase the ad’s click-through rate by a few percentage points. Among these, we can distinguish call assets, information assets, sitelinks, price assets, and promotion assets.

extensions in google

To find out more about assets go to: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375499?hl=en

The ad content vs. quality score

The ad content vs. quality score

The quality score comprises the quality of advertisements, keywords and landing pages. More valuable ads can ensure lower CPC and bids, and more importantly, higher position of your advertisement, that’s why it’s worth working on improving your quality score by, for example, making your ad content more substantial. The accuracy of the advertisement determines the extent to which its content corresponds to the keyword used. The more your ads and landing page correspond to the users’ search queries, the better your quality score.

To make your advertisement more accurate, you can:

  • tailor the ad text to the users’ search queries,
  • place keywords in smaller groups of advertisements with more precisely targeted ads,
  • identify groups of ads with strongly different keywords that can’t be displayed on a single ad, and place keywords with a “below average” rating in the new group of ads that better meet users’ requirements,
  • tailor the content of the advertisement to the intentions visible in the search query,
  • apply negative keywords to make sure that ads aren’t displayed on inaccurate search queries.

Copywriting rules in Google

You should always take into consideration Google’s editorial requirements when creating your advertisements. If you fail to comply with these principles, your ads probably won’t be accepted.

In Google Ads, it’s forbidden to:

  • create ads with linguistic errors,
  • use symbols and punctuation marks inconsistently or incorrectly,
  • use capital letters and spaces incorrectly or inappropriately,
  • include the phone number in the text of the advertisement (except for call extensions),
  • repeat names, words or phrases in an unnecessary manner,
  • apply banned words and trademarks.

If you want to find out more, go to https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546?hl=en

The discussed Google Ads copywriting rules certainly don’t cover all the possibilities and functionalities you can take advantage of in order to create effective and valuable advertisements. However, thanks to knowing some basic mechanisms and principles which govern Google Ads advertising, you’ve a perfect starting point for further analysis and experiments. You’ll be able to create and work out the most effective advertisements for a given industry or a target group using only your own experience and collected data.

Author
Tomek Gniecki SEM Delante
Author
Tomek Gniecki

SEM & Analytics Specialist

Graduate of Marketing and Market Communication at Cracow University of Economics. At Delante he is involved in running Google Ads campaigns and the implementation and configuration of Google Analytics. He also conducts training in web analytics. Privately a guitarist, a lover of heavy music and good football.

Author
Michał Szydlowski
Author
Michał Szydłowski

Junior SEM Specialist

Author
Tomek Gniecki SEM Delante
Author
Tomek Gniecki

SEM & Analytics Specialist

Graduate of Marketing and Market Communication at Cracow University of Economics. At Delante he is involved in running Google Ads campaigns and the implementation and configuration of Google Analytics. He also conducts training in web analytics. Privately a guitarist, a lover of heavy music and good football.

Author
Michał Szydlowski
Author
Michał Szydłowski

Junior SEM Specialist

FAQ

1. What are key rules when creating content for ad campaign?

Most importantly make sure to:

  • grab customers’ attention
  • show your USP – let them know the real value they will get by using your product/service
  • use relevant keywords
  • use benefit-driven language.

It seems hard to fit all these elements in one short ad text, but trust us – it’s not that hard and can make your ad significantly more effective 😉

2. What is AIDA rule and should I use it when creating ad content?

AIDA is an acronym of Attention – Interest – Desire – Action and it’s a marketing rule that applies to customers’ purchasing stages. According to the rule, you should come up with different communication methods for each stage of the purchasing funnel.

Should you use it? Sure! AIDA really helps to put yourself in potential customers’ shoes and therefore prepare content that will be most appealing to them. With that chances are your ad will win their attention and will convert.

3. What is CTA?

CTA ( also referred to as ‘Call-To-Action’) is a part of an advertisement that encourages users to perform desired (by ad creator) action. It can be as simple as “Click here”  more creative (and those work the best) like “find your dream home”, “explore your growth possibilities”, etc.

CTA is a very important part of every ad content, so you should really spend a while to make it the most effective. It can even have a crucial role in making users click on your ad 🙂

 

Check out
More Articles

SEO SEM Agency

Get a
Free Quote

Awards

Award - Deloitte 2021 Award - European eCommerce Awards 2022 Award - European Search Awards 2022 Award - Global Agency Awards 2022 Award - IPMA Award - US Search Awards 2021